Rana Mitter
From Beijing with Love
Great State: China and the World
By Timothy Brook
Profile 442pp £25
In 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death, a drama played out thousands of miles away in Beijing. Two court officials were arguing about how Italian Jesuits in China should be treated. One of these, Shen Que, was convinced that they were spreading seditious views and should be expelled forthwith. The other, Xu Guangqi, argued that the foreigners brought valuable new ideas to the country, enabling Confucianism and Christianity to engage respectfully with each other. In the end, the Jesuits were taken to the Portuguese territory of Macao, from where they were supposed to be sent to Europe; they stayed there, however, and two of them even returned to Beijing. Such ambivalence about foreign influence in China has lasted for centuries. We tend to hear much about the nationalistic, prickly part of China’s world-view these days. Timothy Brook’s Great State puts forward an elegant and compelling argument for why we should look at the cosmopolitan part of the Chinese mind-set as well.
First, Brook points out, China has always interacted with the rest of the world and has never been genuinely isolated from it. Second, China’s existence as a ‘Great State’ does not go back, as sweeping histories often suggest, to the ‘first emperor’, Qin Shi Huang, of terracotta army
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk